Author: Danielle Randall Doughty | Jane Halpern | Department of Chemistry | Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science<\/p>\n
MIT Associate Professor\u00a0Jacob Andreas<\/a> of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science [EECS] and MIT Associate Professor\u00a0Brett McGuire<\/a> of the Department of Chemistry have been selected as the winners of the 2026\u00a0Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award. Established in 1982 as a permanent tribute to Institute Professor Emeritus Harold E. Edgerton\u2019s great and enduring support for younger faculty members, this award is given annually in recognition of exceptional distinction in teaching, research, and service.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Department of Chemistry is extremely delighted to see Brett recognized for science that has changed how we think about carbon in space,\u201d says Class of 1942 Professor of Chemistry and Department Head Matthew D. Shoulders. \u201cBrett\u2019s lab combines laboratory spectroscopy, radio astronomy, and sophisticated signal-analysis methods to pull definitive molecular fingerprints out of extraordinarily faint data. His discovery of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the cold interstellar medium has opened a powerful new window on astrochemistry. Moreover, Brett is inventing the creative and unique tools that make discoveries like this possible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJacob Andreas represents the very best of MIT EECS\u201d says Asu Ozdaglar, EECS department head. \u201cHe is an innovative researcher whose work combines computational and linguistically informed approaches to build foundations of language learning. He is an extraordinary educator who has brought these forefront ideas into our core classes in natural language processing and machine learning. His ability to bridge foundational theory with real-world impact, while also advancing the social and ethical dimensions of computing, makes him truly deserving of the Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award.\u201d<\/p>\n Andreas joined the MIT faculty in July 2019, and is affiliated with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His work is in natural language processing (NLP), and more broadly in AI. He aims to understand the computational foundations of language learning, and to build intelligent systems that can learn from human guidance. Among other honors, Andreas has received Samsung\u2019s AI Researcher of the Year award, MIT\u2019s Kolokotrones and Junior Bose teaching awards, a 2024 Sloan Research Fellow award, and paper awards at the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences, the International Conference on Machine Learning, and the Association for Computational Linguistics.<\/p>\n Andreas received his BS from Columbia University, his MPhil from Cambridge University (where he studied as a Churchill scholar), and his PhD in natural language processing from the University of California at Berkeley. His work in natural language processing has taken on thorny problems in the capability gap between humans and computers. \u201cThe defining feature of human language use is our capacity for compositional generalization,\u201d explains Antonio Torralba, Delta Electronics Professor and faculty head of Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making in the Department of EECS. \u201cMany of the core challenges in natural language processing is addressed by simply training larger and larger neural models, but this kind of compositional generalization remains a persistent difficulty, and without the ability to generalize compositionally, the deep learning toolkit will never be robust enough for the most challenging real-world NLP tasks. Jacob\u2019s work on compositional modeling draws new connections between NLP and work in computer vision and physics aimed at modeling systems governed by symmetries and other algebraic structures and, using them, they have been able to build NLP models exhibiting a number of new, human-like language acquisition behaviors, including one-shot word learning, learning via mutual exclusivity constraints, and learning of grammatical rules in extremely low-resource settings.\u201d<\/p>\n Within EECS, Andreas has developed multiple advanced courses in natural language processing, as well as new exercises designed to get students to grapple with important social and ethical considerations in machine learning deployment.\u00a0\u201cJacob has taken a leading role in completely modernizing and extending our course offerings in natural language processing,\u201d says award nominator Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Panasonic Professor in the Department of EECS. \u201cHe has led the development of a modern two-course sequence, which is a cornerstone of the new AI+D [artificial intelligence and decision-making] major, routinely enrolling several hundred students each semester. His command of the area is broad and deep, and his classes integrate classical structural understanding of language with the most modern learning-based approaches. He has put MIT EECS on the worldwide map as a place to study natural language at every level.\u201d<\/p>\n Brett McGuire\u00a0joined the MIT faculty in 2020 and was promoted to associate professor in 2025. His research operates at the intersection of physical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, and observational astrophysics, where he seeks to uncover how the chemical building blocks of life evolve alongside and help shape the birth of stars and planets. A former Jansky Fellow and then Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, McGuire has a BS in chemistry from the University of Illinois and a PhD in physical chemistry from Caltech. His honors include a 2026 Sloan Fellowship, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy, and the MIT Award for Teaching with Digital Technology.<\/p>\n The faculty who nominated McGuire for this award praised his extraordinary public outreach, his immediate willingness to take on teaching class 5.111 (Principles of Chemical Science), a General Institute Requirement (GIR) course comprised of 150\u2013500 students, and his service to both the MIT and astrochemical communities.<\/p>\n \u201cBrett is at the very top of astrochemical scientists in his age group due to his discovery of fused carbon ring compounds in the cold region of the ISM [interstellar medium], an observation that provides a route for carbon incorporation in planets,\u201d says Sylvia Ceyer, the John C. Sheehan Professor of Chemistry in her nomination statement. \u201cHis extensive involvement in service-oriented activities within the astrochemical\/physical community is highly unusual for a junior scientist, and is testament to the value that the astronomical community places in his wisdom and judgement. His phenomenal organizational skills have made his contributions to graduate admission protocols and seminar administration at MIT the envy of the department. And most importantly, Brett is a superb teacher, who cares deeply about students\u2019 understanding and success, not only in his course, but in their future endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs an assistant professor, Brett volunteered to teach 5.111, a large GIR course with 150\u2013500 students, and has received some of the best teaching evaluations among all faculty who have led the subject,\u201d says Mei Hong, the\u00a0David A. Leighty Professor of Chemistry. \u201cHe has a natural talent in explaining abstract physical chemistry concepts in an engaging manner. His slides, which he prepared from scratch instead of modifying from previous years\u2019 material from other professors, are clear, and \u2026 the combination of lucid explanation and humor has generated great enthusiasm and interest in chemistry among students.\u201d<\/p>\n Subject evaluations from McGuire\u2019s courses praised his humor, the clarity of his explanations, and his ability to transform a lecture into a \u201cscience show.\u201d \u201cI haven’t felt this sort of desire for the depth of understanding in a subject beyond just a straight grade [in some time],\u201d says one student. \u201cBrett definitely stimulated that love of learning for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBrett is an outstanding faculty member who is dedicated to fostering student learning and success,\u201d says Jennifer Weisman, assistant director of academic programs in chemistry. \u201cHe is thoughtful, caring, and goes above and beyond to help his colleagues, students, and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thrilled to be selected for the Edgerton Award this year,\u201d says McGuire. \u201cThe award is nominally for teaching, research, and service; MIT and the chemistry department in particular have been an incredible place to learn and grow in all these areas. I\u2019m incredibly grateful for the mentorship, enthusiasm, and support I have received from my colleagues, from my students both in the lab and in the classroom, and from the MIT community during my time here. I look forward to many more years of exciting discovery together with this one-of-a-kind community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Danielle Randall Doughty | Jane Halpern | Department of Chemistry | Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science MIT Associate Professor\u00a0Jacob Andreas of the […] Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aiproblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}